The Holy Road

Michael Blake

Dystel & Goderich Literary Management, Feb 25, 2013 - Fiction

Eleven years have passed since Lieutenant John Dunbar became the Comanche warrior Dances With Wolves and married Stands With A Fist, a white-born woman raised as a Comanche from early childhood. With their three children, they live peacefully in the village of Ten Bears. But there is unease in the air, caused by increased reports of violent confrontations with white soldiers, who want to drive the Comanche onto reservations. Disquiet turns to horror, and then to rage, when a band of white rangers descends on Ten Bear's village, slaughtering half its inhabitants and abducting Stands With A Fist and her infant daughter. The three surviving great warriors - Wind In His Hair, Kicking Bird, and Dances With Wolves - decide they must go to war with the white invaders. At the same time, Dances With Wolves realizes that only he can rescue his wife and child. Told with the same sweep, insight, and majesty that have made Dances With Wolves a worldwide phenomenon, The Holy Road is an epic story of courage and honor.

About the author

Michael Blake was born Michael Lennox Webb in Fort Bragg, North Carolina on July 5, 1945. He joined the Air Force and was assigned to the public information office and began writing for the base newspaper. He attended the University of New Mexico before going to film school at the University of California, Berkeley. One of his first screenplays, Stacy's Knights, was produced in 1983 and starred Kevin Costner. He continued to write scripts for the next several years, but nothing he wrote made it to the screen. After reading Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee by Dee Brown, Blake had the idea for Dances with Wolves. Costner suggested he write a book instead of a screenplay. The book was published in 1988. Blake had just lost his job as a dishwasher when Costner asked him to adapt his own novel into a screenplay. The Dances with Wolves film was released in 1990. Blake received an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. His other novels included Airman Mortensen and The Holy Road. He died from heart failure on May 2, 2015 at the age of 69.

Bibliographic information

• Title: The Holy Road
• Author: Michael Blake
• Publisher: Dystel & Goderich Literary Management, 2013
• ISBN: 0988997436, 9780988997431
• Subjects: Fiction / Historical; Fiction / Westerns